Sony Clarifies Details About PS3 Home

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog has a few new details on the future of the Home project, as gleaned from the ThreeSpeech website. Among the tidbits of information: they'll be rolling out the service slowly, ramping up the number of servers as gradually as possible. They're really looking to make money with this, via advertising and microtransactions. And they're not really worried about porn. "For instance, a casino or even somewhere you can go and see 18-rated trailers for games. That isn't anything particularly sinister, but obviously, you'd have to prevent 12-year-olds going in there. Obviously, there are other 18-plus areas that you could imagine, but some of those might not come to fruition."

Never happen

[Reason58]

Areas requiring the user to be 18 will earn this game an AO rating. It will never happen.

Re:Never happen

[DrXym]

Areas requiring the user to be 18 will earn this game an AO rating. It will never happen.

I see plenty of AO content every time I browse the internet. Some sites, including game sites ask my age everytime I view a clip. If they can exist without a rating, why do you assume that some Sony service cannot. Especially when it proactively attempts to enforce age restrictions unlike most websites.

Re:Never happen

[ucblockhead]

It's not a game and will thus not be rated at all.

Re:Never happen

[king-manic]

Areas requiring the user to be 18 will earn this game an AO rating. It will never happen.

The reason why AO games don't occur is because big box stores like Walmart/Best buy have taken it upon themselves to act as a moral agent of their customers and limit more controversial content. Doing so proactively to avoid hassles with their predominantly older and more conservative customer base. Sony's online store is currently and likely permanently populated by a younger more liberal crowd (all 6 of us). They may be able to get away with adult content with ID tied to credit card or some other verification method (you must be 18 for a credit card so user with a registered one is fine. )

Re:Never happen

[DrXym]

It sounds like you've identified a far more broken model than Sony. It's not unreasonable to think that Sony could proactively enforce 18+ by requiring the person to hold a PSN account that has made at least 1 credit card transaction. They could even require a user to enter some nominal transaction such as 1c to enter a site for the first time. While it isn't impossible for some kid to have faked their parent's credit card details, I think Sony would have a reasonable defence if they they were sued because because of it.

After all, how is it any different from any other adult pay service on the web?

Blue Hyperlinks on a blue bar

[atari2600]

Sheer genius and easy on the eyes. Which genius came up with that idea? JFC.

Re:Never happen

[DrXym]

PSN doesn't require a credit card on every account. You can have a master account (the parent's account) that can add funds to sub accounts (the kids). So even if Home had micro transactions, there is no need for a kid to have a credit card to use it. Sub accounts can also be age restricted by the master account so that they can't play inappropriate content, whether it is games, movies or (I assume) Home zones. So it's really about parental responsibility.

Re:Never happen

[Seumas]

It's sad that at the age of 30, I am still forced by industry and society to have the content and entertainment I consume dumbed down to the acceptability level of a fourth grade child.